Public capacity
BTCValue of the funding outputs of announced, unspent channels at the latest day's last block.
Dashboard · VantagePlanned
Lightning Network Capacity, Channels and Nodes
How much bitcoin is in public Lightning Network channels today?
Bitcoin locked in public Lightning channels, the channel and node counts and the opens and closes read from the Bitcoin chain.
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Blueprint
What the dashboard will show.
The dashboard as it will open in Vantage. Each figure is named here and arrives with its receipt; until its data is published, its place stays empty.
Network
Public capacity, channels and nodes today and over time.
Public channels
countAnnounced channels whose funding output is unspent at the latest day's last block.
Nodes with public channels
countDistinct nodes that are one end of at least one open public channel.
Largest ten nodes' share
%Share of public capacity in channels that touch one of the ten nodes with the most capacity.
Public capacity by day
BTCPublic capacity at each day's last block over the selected period, in BTC and in USD at the oracle price.
Opens and closes
Channels opened and closed on-chain, and how they closed.
Channels opened, 30 days
countPublic channels whose funding output confirmed in the last 30 days.
Channels closed, 30 days
countPublic channels whose funding output was spent in the last 30 days.
Force-close share, 30 days
%Force and penalty closes as a share of all channel closes in the last 30 days.
Net capacity change, 30 days
BTCCapacity of channels opened minus capacity of channels closed in the last 30 days.
Opens and closes by day
countChannels opened and closed each day, with closes split into cooperative, force and penalty closes.
- Period
- Last 30, 90 or 365 days
About
What it answers, and for whom.
Lightning channels are funded on Bitcoin: two parties lock coins in a shared output, then pay each other off-chain. Public channels are announced to the rest of the network over Lightning's gossip protocol, and each announcement points to its funding output on the Bitcoin chain. This dashboard adds up those funding outputs every day, so public capacity is the bitcoin that announced channels actually lock.
Public capacity is a floor, not the whole network. Private channels, which many mobile wallets use, are never announced and cannot be counted, and capacity measures what is locked, not what is paid. Read channel opens and closes beside capacity: a fall can come from a few large channels closing, and force closes, where one side broadcasts without the other, are a sign of peers going offline or disputes.
Method
How it will be measured.
Every figure will be read at a block, kept with its source and its exact read, and open a receipt anyone can re-check.
How receipts work →- Public channels come from gossip channel_announcement messages, each pointing to a funding output by its short channel id: block, transaction and output index.
- Capacity is the value of each announced channel's funding output, added up at each day's last block; a channel whose funding output has been spent counts as closed.
- Closes are classed from the spending transaction: cooperative closes pay both sides at once, force closes broadcast a commitment with timelocked outputs and penalty closes sweep a cheater's funds.
- Gossip is off-chain and each node sees its own view, so the channel list is gathered from several nodes and every channel is checked against its funding output on Bitcoin.
The data it needs
Chain data, with some off-chain sources
- lightning_network_dailyTo buildLightning Network capacityPublic Lightning channels, nodes and the bitcoin locked in channel funding outputs, per day.
- native_prices_dailyTo buildOracle prices by dayReference prices of major assets read from on-chain oracle feeds (Chainlink latestRoundData) at each day's last block, with each round's update time.
- Lightning gossip channel_announcement and node_announcement messages, gathered from several nodes
- Funding outputs on Bitcoin referenced by each short channel id, and their values
- Spends of funding outputs, classed as cooperative, force or penalty closes
- BTC/USD oracle on Ethereum at each day's last block, for USD values
Questions
Questions people ask.
How much bitcoin is in the Lightning Network?
The page shows the bitcoin locked in public channels, read from their funding outputs at the latest day's last block. Bitcoin in private channels is never announced and cannot be counted, so the true total is higher than public capacity.
Why does Lightning capacity rise or fall?
Capacity moves when channels open, close or are resized. The page shows opens and closes by day and the net change in capacity, so a move in the total can be traced to the channels behind it.
What is a force close?
A close where one side broadcasts the latest channel state without the other's cooperation, often because the peer went offline. Its outputs are timelocked, so funds return more slowly than in a cooperative close.
How many Lightning nodes are there?
The page counts nodes with at least one public channel. Nodes with only private channels do not appear in gossip, so the count covers the public network only.
Is Lightning capacity the same as payment volume?
No. Capacity is the bitcoin locked in channels; payments move inside channels without touching the chain, and their volume is private. A small capacity can carry many payments, and a large one may sit idle.
- Short channel id
- A channel's identifier, built from the block height, transaction index and output index of its funding output.
- Funding output
- The Bitcoin output, usually a two-of-two multisig, that locks a channel's coins.
- Gossip
- The messages Lightning nodes use to announce channels and nodes to each other.
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BitcoinBuild Lightning Network Capacity, Channels and Nodes on verified data.
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